In the Old Testament, it was the responsibility of the priests to present the interests of the people before God (Ex 28:29).  When he would enter the Holy Place of the tabernacle, he would wear a breastpiece upon which were fastened stones that bore the names of the sons of Israel. The breastpiece was attached to the shoulders of the ephod which the priest wore and the stones were positioned over his heart.  This illustrated that he bore the burden of their sins and the weight of their needs upon his shoulders as He came before the LORD and that the people were constantly on his heart. As Exodus 28:29 declares, “So Aaron (the high priest) shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgement on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the LORD.”

Jesus, as the great high priest, has fulfilled the office of the high priest by entering into the holy places once for all (Heb 9:12), appearing before God on our behalf (Heb 9:24), bearing our sins upon himself (Heb 9:28) and now ever interceding for us before the LORD (Heb 7:25).  Christians, in turn, are now united with him as “a royal priesthood” (1 Pt 2:9) who are called to live disciplined lives that their prayers will be effective (1 Pt 4:7) as we, now, pray for others (see 1 Pt 2:12 and 3:18 in light 1 Tm 2:1-7). Just as Jesus always lives to make intercession (Heb 7:25), so should we now be praying always (1 Thes 5:16). Praying for others, then, is to make a declaration “I will carry your burden before the LORD as I hold you close to my heart.”

            When we pray, how should we pray? Returning to the address “Our Father in heaven,” we find that it indicates that the communication that is involved in prayer shares both similarities and differences with the type of communication we share among one another. On the one hand, the Father and his people relate to one another as persons and personhood implies the ability to communicate and interact. The person of the Father, however, is “in heaven.” We are unable to interact with him in the same manner that we might enter into discourse with someone who is sitting across the room from us. The incorporeal nature of God who is “spirit” (Jn 4:24) causes some to wonder if communication is possible at all.  If we cannot see God, how do we know that he is present and attentive? Baelz points out that, while prayer is best understood utilizing the analogy of a shared human relationship, the type of communication is much different.  As one who is omnipresent and omniscient, God does not need to be brought into a conversation, we do not need to gain his attention and, since he already knows what we are thinking, we do not actually even have to formulate our thoughts into words. He concludes that prayers do not actually require words at all as “talking is not the only way of ‘being with.’”^[i]  In Baelz we might hear echoes of St. Catherine of Siena who famously wrote that “charity is itself continual prayer” and “every exercise, whether performed in oneself or in one’s neighbor, with good-will, is prayer.”^[ii] While both would recognize the place for vocal prayers, they seem to be advocating the idea that prayer is ultimately anything one does for God. The problem is that when Jesus was asked by his disciples how to pray, he responded “When you pray, say…” (Lk 11:2) and then proceeded to give them a series of pronouncements and requests to vocalize.  This is typical of what we find throughout the Scriptures.  Prayer is consistently presented as communication through the use of words.  Admittedly, “vocalizing” a prayer does not require making intelligible sounds from our vocal chords. When Hannah prayed she is described as “speaking in heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard” (1 Sm 1:13). Though no sound came from her mouth she was, nevertheless, “speaking.” 

While this type of silent prayer is acceptable to God, Aquinas provides us with three arguments for why vocalizing our prayers audibly can be helpful. First, hearing our voice can lead to the mind being more actively attentive to and our affections more greatly moved towards holy desires. Secondly, using our voice is a way of serving God with all that we have. In other words, not simply with our minds, but with our minds and our mouths. Third, what we vocalize tends to be an overflow of what is taking place in our heart.^[iii] We might wish to add a few additional arguments relevant for the clinical setting.  Fourth, praying out loud instructs and provides an example for other believers. It is not uncommon for individuals, especially in crisis, to be at a loss for what to pray. In these cases, the Christian physician has an opportunity to teach by example.  For this reason, one should always be ready to give a reason for their hope (1 Peter 3:15) and able to express that via prayer.   Fifth, using our voices lets those for whom we are praying know what it is that we are praying for and that we are, indeed, praying for them. It ought to the regular practice of physicians who offer to pray for a patient to pray in that moment and to pray out loud. Receiving the promise that prayers will be said on your behalf is nice, but hearing the prayer articulated in your presence is true encouragement.  Sixth, praying out loud can be a form of witness to those who do not believe. Through your prayers, you declare that there is a God who is relational, who hears when we make requests and in whom we trust to respond according to his lovingkindness.  In this way we honor God by pointing the patient to a hope that lies beyond them.

This may be overwhelming for those who are not used to praying in public.  In those instances, there is no shame in turning to written prayers for help. Puritan author Thomas Ridgely spoke of how the LORD sometimes calls on his people to make use of various means to bring answers to their prayers about.  Pointing to the examples of Moses being called to stretch out his rod over the sea and Hezekiah to take a lump of figs to place on a boil for healing, Ridgely concludes “we should not be adverse to pursuing means provided us by God to see our prayers for temporal things answered.”^[iv] In the same way, we should not be adverse to using the means provided to us by God to assist in saying the prayers themselves.  For example, Athanasius wrote to a friend named Marcellinus of how beneficial praying the Psalms can be.  He notes,

In the Psalter you learn about yourself.  You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries.  Moreover, whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.  Prohibitions of evildoing are plentiful in Scripture, but only the Psalter tells you how to obey these orders and refrain from sin. But the marvel with the Psalter is that, barring those prophecies about the Savior and some about the Gentiles, the reader takes all its words upon his lips as though they were his own, written for his special benefit, and takes them and recites them, not as though someone else were speaking or another person’s feelings being described, but as himself speaking of himself, offering the words to God as his own heart’s utterance, just as though he himself had made them up. When you would give thanks to God at your affliction’s end, sing Psalm 4, Psalm 75 and Psalm 116.  When you see the wicked wanting to ensnare you and you wish your prayer to reach God’s ears then wake up early and sing Psalm 5.^[v]

The praying of the Psalms with a patient can be of great comfort and an added benefit is that one can pray these words with the confidence that what is being prayed is acceptable to God.

A lack of confidence still may compel some to withhold the offer of prayer altogether and to justify themselves by arguing that their acts of charity are their manner of praying.  As has been noted, however, if we do not know the words to say, we have no Scriptural justification to believe that activity absent of words is accepted as prayer. As an example we might consider the act of fasting. Fasting is a means of declaring devotion to and dependence upon God. It can also be a means by which one mourns and repents before him. It is a way to approach the LORD when in great need. One would think that if there were a “prayer” that involved no words, fasting would qualify. Yet prayer and fasting are treated as two separate activities in the Old and New Testaments (Neh 1:4, Lk 5:33). 

This does not mean that there are not obvious differences in the type of communication with have with God and the type we have with one another.  Chief of these is that when we speak to God, we do not generally expect to hear God speak back. As Philips notes, in our communication there is not “the interplay of personal pronouns…in short, prayer is not a conversation.”^[vi] Though we do not expect to hear God respond in conversation, we are called to expect a response from him. That is the implicit message of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and the explicit message elsewhere. For example, in 1 John 5:14-15 we are told that ^“this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.” Donald Bloesch comments “the essence of true prayer is heartfelt supplication, bringing before God one’s most innermost needs and requests in the confident expectation that God will hear and answer.”^[vii] Barth adds forcefully, “Let us approach the subject from the given fact that God answers.   God is not deaf, but listens; more than that, he acts.  God does not act in the same way whether we pray or not.  Prayer exerts an influence upon God’s action, even upon his existence.  That is what the word ‘answer’ means.” ^[viii]

For Luther, grasping these truths before praying was as important as the prayer itself. Luther argued in his 1519 sermon “On Rogationtide Prayer and Procession” that we could never approach God in confidence unless we first had a promise and pledge from Him and it would do us well to reflect on God’s promises to us and to remind Him of them.  God declares in Matthew 21:22, “Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith,” and in Luke 11:9-13:

“And I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” 

Luther encouraged his congregation, “We should cheerfully rely on these and similar promises and commands and pray with true confidence.”^[ix]

It is important to note Luther’s point that the confidence we have that our prayers will be answered comes not from a confidence that we are somehow deserving of his kindness. Rather the source of our confidence is the “promises and pledge” of God who will not go back on his word.  Moses recognized this when God declared that he would justly unleash his wrath upon the people of Israel after they had worshipped a golden calf that they had fashioned with their own hands.  Moses cried out to the LORD,

“O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? ¹² Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. ¹³ Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”

The result of Moses’ prayer was that “the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.” What was it about Moses’ prayer that made it acceptable to God? First, Moses was concerned more for the honor of God’s name than he was for the safety of God’s people. This is illustrated by Moses’ concern that God’s unleashing of his wrath upon the Israelites would give the Egyptians an excuse to slander his name by accusing him of having evil intentions in bringing them out of Egypt. Secondly, Moses recognized that, while God owed the people of Israel nothing, he was the type of God who would be true to his promises to their ancestors: “Remember, how you swore by your own self.” Moses prayer was answered because it honored God above people. This brings us back to the Lord’s Prayer.  It is not without cause that Jesus had his disciples begin, not with their own needs, but with an expression of their desire for God’s honor to be upheld, his kingdom to come, and his will to be done. The way we can be confident that our prayers will be met is by prioritizing the honor of his name, the expansion and coming of his kingdom and the accomplishment of his will. In other words, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Mt 6:33).  Even the assurance that Jesus offered to the disciples that he would answer their prayers was grounded in his desire to glorify God: “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn 14:13). Jesus provides us with a model as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Mt 26:39).

The question might be, then, asked “If ultimately our desire is that God’s will be done, then why mention our will at all?” Shouldn’t our prayers simply be “Thy will be done, Amen.”?  Certainly D.Z. Phillips is correct when he notes,

When deep religious believers pray for something, they are not so much asking God to bring this about, but in a way telling him of the strength of their desires. They realize that things may not go as they wish, but they are asking to be able to go on living whatever happens…

Is this not at the heart of every prayer that a patient in distress prays?  Phillips continues,

The meaning of the specific request is internally related to the expression of readiness to accept the will of God.  As I have suggested, the believer is asking that his desires will not destroy the spirit of God in him.  But why should the specific requests be mentioned at all?  The answer to this point, I think, is that since a man is concerned with hope and meaning in his life, it is the desires which he actually does have which he wants to bring to God.  After all, it is these desires and not any others which threaten to overwhelm him, and through which he must seek God.^[x]

            Here Phillips describes the tension that we all feel.  We have certain desires but are unsure that they are what are best for us. We recognize the tendency of our flesh to lead us to desire that which we should not and to avoid that which we should. We have seen too many lives shipwrecked upon the rocks of ill-guided wishes and so we strive to bring this spiritual battle before the LORD.  We submit our sincere wishes before him while acknowledging that he knows what is best for us better than we and so we strive to be able to genuinely declare “thine, not mine, be done.” It should not surprise us when this does not come easy. John Koenig points us to how Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death” in Hebrews 5:7-8 and observes that “These words suggest that Jesus had to strive with God on a number of occasions, not only to hear answers from on high but also to receive the power to live them out. It would be naïve to expect that our own conversations with God will be chiefly peaceful and pleasant.”^[xi]

            We are not Jesus, however, and so how can we be confident of victory in our strivings before the LORD? Our confidence lies not in our own strength but in the help of the Spirit of God. True prayer always includes the Spirit’s involvement. Bloesch argues, “True prayer is not taking place unless it is enlivened and directed by the Holy Spirit…It is not the mere saying of prayerful words but actually speaking with God in the power of the Spirit.”^[xii]

            Etienne Veto makes a compelling case that the only way that true Christian prayer is possible at all is by the working and leading of the Holy Spirit within us. Many assume that to pray “in the Spirit” is to be engaged in a unique event typically related to ecstatic utterances promoted by the more charismatic forms of Christian practice. Each New Testament text that addresses the practice, however, speaks not to unique prayer events, but about prayer in general in all its different forms as it is commended to all believers alike. Ephesians 6:18 calls on believers to pray “at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” as a part of donning the armor of God. Jude 20 calls on believers to pray “in the Holy Spirit” in their battle to resist false teachers. Galatians 4:6 and Romans 8:15-26 describe the work of the Spirit in believers to assure them of their salvation and as one who intercedes for them when they do not know how to pray. In Luke 10:21 we even find Jesus exulting in the Holy Spirit.

            What do we conclude is meant by praying “in the Spirit”? Typically, to be “in the Spirit” means to be led or controlled by him (see Lk 2:27 and 4:1) or to be inspired to say or understand something (Mk 12:36). In other words, it indicates that the Holy Spirit is active in doing something within us. When it comes to prayer, the Spirit is doing at least four things. First, he is leading the pray-er to pray (Lk 10:21, Rom 8:14). Second, he instructs us as to whom we should pray while giving us access to him (Rom 8:15, Gal 4:6, Eph 2:18).  Third, he inspires us as to what should pray for (Rom 8:26) and, lastly, Veto argues that the above implicitly teaches that the Spirit even instructs us as to how we should pray.

            In light of all of this, Dirk G. van der Merwe’s statement that “(Prayer and divine involvement) are like the two sides of a coin- you can distinguish them but never separate them. The one implies the other,”^[xiii] seems fitting and the encouragement we derive from this can be invaluable. This promise of the help of the Spirit highlights, however, the fact that there are many times when God does not seem to answer our prayers. If we have the confidence that he is true to his promises and the knowledge that his Spirit is at work in us directing our prayers, how do we make sense of this?  This takes us back to the question as to why we must pray at all.  If prayers are primarily concerned with receiving earthly things, then we may legitimately wonder at the fact that prayers for physical healing often go unheeded.  If, on the other hand, prayer is fundamentally after something else, then perhaps the physical healing is but a shadow of the real work that God intends to do.

In his treatise, “On Prayer,” Origen wrestled with the question of how God’s providential ordering of events and the prayers of his people work together. In doing so, he asked the question we considered earlier: “If God has already chosen what will take place, why should we pray at all?” In Chapter 3, “Objections to Prayer,” Origen writes:

“Were anyone to pray for sunrise he would be thought a simpleton for entreating through prayer for the occurrence of what was to take place quite apart from his prayer: In like manner a man would be a fool to believe that his prayer was responsible for the occurrence of what was to take place in any case even had he never prayed.^[xiv]

Later in Chapter 11, “The Object of Prayer,” Origen makes some helpful observations concerning the ends for which prayers ought to be prayed:

            For material and physical things count as fleeting feeble shadow, in no way comparable to the saving holy gifts of the God of All. What comparison is there between material riches and the riches that are in every word and all wisdom? Who in his senses would compare health of flesh and bone with health of mind, strength of soul, and consistency of thought—things which, if kept in measure by God’s word, make bodily sufferings a paltry scratch, and even slighter if we can grasp it.^[xv]

I find that weighing these two considerations together is helpful in seeking to understand the issue of “unanswered” prayers and will apply them to the case of David’s pleas for protection and my wife’s request for healing.

In 1 Samuel 16:1-13, the LORD informs Samuel that he has rejected Saul as king over Israel and has, instead, chosen David to take the throne.  When Saul recognizes God’s favor is on David, he becomes jealous and desires for him to be killed.  Learning of Saul’s intentions, David flees from him and hides in the cave of Adullam (1 Sm 22:1-2). While in the cave, David pens Psalm 57 in which he pleads for God to be merciful to him.  In light of the LORD’s word to Samuel that David would be king, was David’s prayer the prayer of a “simpleton” and a “fool” who was lifting up an unnecessary prayer? Would everything that the LORD intended to happen have happened whether David prayed or not?  

My wife has an ailment that prevents her stomach from being able to digest food correctly.  No medicinal treatment has made any improvements and the many prayers that have been lifted up by church, family, and friends for her physical healing have not led to any physical improvements.  Have our prayers, then, been useless? Would there have been any difference whether we had prayed or not?

We would be tempted to say that, in either case, the prayers were to no effect. In David’s case, in order to stay true to the word he had given to Samuel, God would have had to have saved David from Saul’s hands with or without his prayers. In my wife’s case, it appears that God has not intended to heal her body, at least up to this point, no matter how many prayers we pray.

But is it possible that there are other even greater things that these prayers were designed to accomplish which, apart from them, would not have come to be? Again, the words of Origen: “material and physical things count as fleeting feeble shadow, in no way comparable to the saving holy gifts of the God of All…who in his senses would compare health of flesh and bone with health of mind, strength of soul, and consistency of thought?” The prayers that David prayed in the cave led him into a deeper relationship of trust with God and the Psalm which came as a result of those prayers has served to encourage God’s people throughout the ages. The prayers that have been lifted up on my wife’s behalf have served to strengthen the bonds of friendship, put familial love on display, and unite the church in a common concern for one of their own. If relationship in service to the glory of God is the primary point of prayer, then it can be said that their prayers have been answered in greater measure than they might have even suspected were possible.

Might someone argue this is a case of “bait and switch”? Jesus instructed in Matthew 7:7-11:

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ⁹ Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? ¹⁰ Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

My wife and I have been praying for the “fish” of her healing, might we be excused for considering and the response “here are deepened relationships instead” as something of a “stone”? Before we answer in the affirmative, we must look again at some of the directions given to us regarding our prayers. For example, Jesus instructions from Matthew 6:25-34:

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³² For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

On the one hand, Jesus tells us to pray for our “daily bread” but, on the other hand, he qualifies that by saying that we should not be anxious about things such as food but, rather, we should be focused on that which is “more than food,” namely, “the kingdom of God and his righteous.” This sets our priorities in prayer.  Recall that, in the Lord’s Prayer, the disciples are not called to ask for their daily bread until after they have already prayed “Hallowed by your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The message is clear: the disciples first priority is concerning things regarding God’s kingdom and all else is prayed in a manner that indicates “I desire this in as far as your provision of it serves to magnify your glory, expand your kingdom and accomplish your will.” James explains that the reason that we do not receive what we ask for is sometimes do to the fact that “you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (Jas 4:2). God rejects prayers whose ends are the satisfaction of our own passions, but is receptive to prayers that will serve to glorify the Father (John 14:13). 

            But does that not only serve to beg the question? My wife’s prayers have consistently been, “Please heal me as a way of bringing glory to your name.”  Are not her priorities in order? On the one hand, no one, not even she, truly knows her own heart in the making of that request. Koenig remarks,

Our conscious desires are not always single-minded. The impediment is not so much a lack of faith as a request made in conflict with ourselves (Jas 1:7). Part of us, either the true or the false self, does not actually want what we are asking for; and God honors this duplicity by refusing to grant our petition until we can be taught what we truly desire by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:26).^[xvi]

This may truly explain why some of our prayers are not answered, but if only prayers that are single-mindedly offered are answered, we must admit that it is a wonder than any prayers are ever answered at all.  Koenig later makes a point that proves to be eminently encouraging and which I would like to end on.

            The Scriptures point out a number of reasons that may lay behind God’s refusal to grant our prayers in the manner in which we pray them. Understanding our own selfishness and sinful natures, we might be expected, then, to be ready to have our prayers consistently denied or, at the least, to be ready to accept less than what we desire. Koenig argues that this is not the case by directing our attention to Ephesians 3:20-21. “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Koenig concludes,

This means that sometimes we might not get just what we consciously ask for because it is not good enough. Or, to put it another way, the no or wait that we receive from God turns out to be part of an immeasurably larger yes. Thus the same Paul who has previously experienced a negative answer to his prayers for personal healing (2 Cor. 12:9) can tell the Corinthians that “in (Christ) it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why we utter the Amen through him to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:19-20). And to the Romans Paul wrote, “(the God) who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also graciously bestow upon us all things with him?” (8:32). Not some things, not just the things we ask for, but all things (see also 1 Cor. 3:21-23). To be in Christ is to live in a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) where our petitions are being constantly reformed by the Spirit to help us receive fullness of life. With Christ pleasant things and fearsome things alike take on the quality of answers to prayer…Of course this does not happen easily with a steady and predictable unfolding of confidence on our part. Always we stand next to the father of the epileptic boy, crying, “Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). But this prayer too is answered “far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” There are experiential breakthroughs into the grandeur of God’s redemptive love; there are real advents of the kingdom.^[xvii]

When approaching prayer in the clinic, then, what must be kept in mind? First, prayers should only be considered “true” prayers when said by a Christian and offered to the Father. This means that a Christian physician should not join in a patient’s prayers to a false god, but should, instead, offer to pray on their behalf before the LORD. As they do so, they need to guard themselves from the tendency to approach prayer in a utilitarian manner in which the pray-er attempts to manipulate God to achieve their own earthly desires- typically, in this context, physical healing. Rather, they should see healing as secondary to the greater work of relationship development that God seeks to accomplish through our prayers. This would include a deepening of the relationship between the physician and patient, but would always have in view the enriching, in the case of Christians, or the beginning, in the case of unbelievers, of their relationship with God. When approaching God in prayer, the physician should be confident that their prayers will be heard because God will be true to his pledge and promises that he will hear and he will respond according to his will. The physician can also be confident because they know that their prayers are said with the help and direction of the Holy Spirit. Armed with this confidence, the physician should feel free to pray aloud with their patient knowing that such a prayer will communicate to them their genuine care and concern. Ultimately, all prayers are to be submitted to the will of the Father for Him to answer in a way that best brings glory to himself, expands his kingdom, and accomplishes his will.  When we approach him this way, we can rest assured that, even when our prayers are not answered in the way in which we might hope, God is at work doing even more than we ask or think.

[i] Baelz, 27-28.

[ii] Catherine of Siena, “Dialog,” 4.4.2, Christian Classics Ethereal Library https://www.ccel.org/ccel/catherine/dialog.iv.iv.ii.html.

[iii] Aquinas, 2.2, q.83, a.12.

[iv] Thomas Ridgely, Commentary on the Larger Catechism: Previously titled A Body of Divinity: Wherein the Doctrines of the Christian Religion are Explained and Defended, Being the Substance of Several Lectures on the Assembly's Larger Catechism, Vol. 2, (Alberta: Still Waters Revival Books, 1993), 589.

[v] Athanasius, Letter to Marcellinus, Theology and Ethics, https://www.theologyethics.com/2016/08/22/the-letter-of-athanasius-to-marcellinus-on-the-interpretation-of-the-psalms/

[vi] Philips, 43.

[vii] Bloesch, 67

[viii] Barth, 13.

[ix] Ibid., 88.

[x] Phillips 121-122

[xi] John Koenig, Rediscovering New Testament Prayer: Boldness and Blessing in the Name of Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1998), 19.

[xii] Bloesch, 38.

[xiii] Dirk G. Van der Merwe,”Prayer, the encounter and participation, the experience: A Pauline exhortation towards a spirituality of prayer”, Verbum et Ecclesia 39(1), a1768, 1. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v39i1.1768.

[xiv] Origen, On Prayer. (Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d.), 9.

[xv] Origen, 31.

[xvi] J. Koenig, 57.

[xvii] J. Koenig, 62.

Bibliography

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine.” https://www.acog.org/Clinical-Guidance-and-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Ethics/The-Limits-of-Conscientious-Refusal-in-Reproductive-Medicine.

Augustine, “Letter 130,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004.

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